Tag Archives: Copyright

Back in the 80’s, MTV was cutting edge. To many of us growing up back then, music videos were as much a part of the soundtrack to our lives as the music itself.

Inspired, my high school class produced its own music video; a lip syncing production of Devo’s We’re Through Being Cool which was seen by less than a thousand people at my school’s annual musical revue. [Note to Roslyn High alums, please send me a copy and I will post it here!]. Today, kids produce lip dubs in just a few hours and mass distribute them to millions worldwide through viral video websites like YouTube.

Here’s a lip dub of I Gotta Feeling by The Black Eyed Peas. A couple of kids from the University of Quebec, Montreal (UQAM) shot this video with 172 students in one take and one rehearsal.

Here’s “the making of” video of the UQAM lip dub [Subsequently blocked by UMG. I can’t figure why of the two, Universal Music Group chose to block the “making of” footage and not the lip dub itself.Updated: January 21, 2012]:

Here’s the original music video produced by The Black Eyed Peas.
I prefer the UQAM students’ take.

Of course, lip dubbing raises all sorts of legal issues concerning copyright, fair use and commercial exploitation of works owned by others. Apparently, the students didn’t clear the music though I suspect the cost of doing so would have been prohibitive.

So are mass distributed, viral lip dubs bad or good for the music business? The band? Do they cut into or promote market share? Do they dilute the promotional power of the band? [Ed. Note: Don’t ask me about this last one. I hear this argument from label reps every time I negotiate with them.]

With over 3 million hits on YouTube and publicity from news outlets and blogs like this one, The Black Eyed Peas could never have garnered that kind of exposure on their own. YouTube’s Audio ID program can link lip dubs and other user generated content on its website to online buyers of the band’s music. That kind of Internet exploitation should be music to the industry’s ears.

[UPDATE: January 18, 2010:] As reported on The Trademark Blog, Capitol Records sued Vimeo in Federal Court on December 10, 2009 for copyright infringement from the site’s exploitation of lip dubs.

According to The Trademark Blog, Capitol needs to persuade the Court not to follow Io Group v. Veoh or UMG v. Veoh. These cases held that file sharing services like Vimeo are not liable for the creative (and arguably infringing) activities of their users.

As I wrote earlier, the music industry needs to have an honest and public discussion about whether such uses actually promote or dilute the value of their works. So far, I haven’t seen any proof one way or the other. In the end, it might not matter. People will continue to find creative and novel ways to exploit existing works despite the risks. It’s incumbent on the music industry to figure out a way to squeeze some profit for themselves out of that.

Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
229 W. 43rd Street
New York, N.Y. 10036

Re: “A GREAT IDEA LIVES FOREVER, SHOULDN’T IT’S COPYRIGHT?”

To the Editor:

The May 20, 2007 Op-Ed Section carries an essay by Mark Helprin urging that Congress extend the term of copyrights to perperuity or close to it.

Copyrights now have a term equal to the life of the author plus 70 years. Authors include not just the individual authors and song writers mentioned by Mr. Helprin, but also the corporations that hire the individuals to create most of the computer programs, motion pictures and television programs that we all use and watch. It is Microsoft, not any individual, that owns the copyright to the nearly ubiquitous WINDOWS operating system and the WORD computer program. Likewise, it is Time-Warner or one of its corporate affiliates that owns the copyright to “THE SOPRANOS”, and Sony or one of its corporate affiliates that owns the copyright to the movie “SPIDER MAN” and its sequels. Because corporations have an indefinite life, copyrights owned by corporations last for 95 years from the date of publication.

If we followed Mr. Helprin’s suggestion to its logical conclusion, the works of William Shakespeare would still be protected by copyright today some 400 years after his death. This would have prevented Leonard Bernstein and his co-creators from producing “West Side Story” (which was based on Shakespeare’s play “Romeo and Juliet”) without the permission of Shakespeare’s heirs. Imagine the problems in locating all of them and securing their permission. At least it would be good for lawyers like me. The examples of literary and artistic works based on or derived from earlier works are too numerous to begin to list, but without these examples, our artistic lives would be immeasurably poorer.

The fact is that the term of copyrights in the United States is now among the longest in the world.

gosh but like we spent hundreds of years looking up at the stars and wondering “is there anybody out there” and hoping and guessing and imagining

because we as a species were so lonely and we wanted friends so bad, we wanted to meet other species and we wanted to talk to them and we wanted to learn from them and to stop being the only people in the universe

and we started realizing that things were maybe not going so good for us– we got scared that we were going to blow each other up, we got scared that we were going to break our planet permanently, we got scared that in a hundred years we were all going to be dead and gone and even if there were other people out there, we’d never get to meet them

and then

we built robots?

and we gave them names and we gave them brains made out of silicon and we pretended they were people and we told them hey you wanna go exploring, and of course they did, because we had made them in our own image

and maybe in a hundred years we won’t be around any more, maybe yeah the planet will be a mess and we’ll all be dead, and if other people come from the stars we won’t be around to meet them and say hi! how are you! we’re people, too! you’re not alone any more!, maybe we’ll be gone

but we built robots, who have beat-up hulls and metal brains, and who have names; and if the other people come and say, who were these people? what were they like?

the robots can say, when they made us, they called us discovery; they called us curiosity; they called us explorer; they called us spirit. they must have thought that was important.

and they told us to tell you hello.

So, I have to say something.

This is my favorite post on this website.

I’ve seen this post in screenshots before, and the first time I read it, I cried. Just sat there with tears running down my face.

Because this, right here, is the best of us, we humans. That we hope, and dream of the stars, and we don’t want to be alone. That this is the best of our technology, not Terminators and Skynet, but our friends, our companions, our legacy. Our message to the stars.

I’m flat out delighted, and maybe even a little honored, that I get to reblog this.